I'm a drummer who owns a guitar which I do not play well. This blog is a chronical of my guitar playing experience with Rocksmith.
I mostly play a Michael Kelly Valor II with coil-split humbuckers and a Fender MIM Telecaster (and a few others). I play on XBox 360/Live using a wireless transmitter. My kids play, too (Fender Squier Strat and Washburn/Lyon LG115) and I'll cover some of their Rocksmith experiences if they can ever stay un-grounded long enough to use the XBox.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Took me 43 events to finally unlock the last Secret Squirrel Song. But, I finally did it. I didn't cheat and I didn't game the game. I just played the events that came to me and did the best I could. I've played several events where I felt like I deserved the encore but didn't get it and it all boiled down to this a fairly ho-hum 2-song event at The Mouse Hole with a Master Mode encore.

MQSs for Event 42 were mostly maxed out at 90k, so I didn't expect to get an encore. I'd only played I Got Mine twice before I worked it up for this event - once as an encore and once in Event 7. (Never played it at all in my original journey.) It took 3 plays to qualify it at 80,200, and I unlocked the Grizzlytone tone on my second play. Wheels was new DLC. I just bought it in February and had only played it twice. Oddly, the MQS for Wheels was really low - 30,600. Best of You was already pre-qualified at 90k from a previous event and I didn't even rehearse it for this event.

I actually did alright. I had 107% of the Event Minimum Score and I beat the MQS for every song. But, as expected, no encore. Like I said, I didn't really expect one, but I can't help wondering why I didn't get one. The more I study it, the more random the whole encore thing seems to be. No biggie. I was pretty pleased with my playing and with my progress on these songs.

Since it was still early and things were going so well, and since the next event had only 2 songs, I decided to go ahead with Event 43.

Event 43 and the Big Double Encore!

Not sure why the RS set-list generator only threw a 2-song event at me. This was the shortest event I've ever played. I've got plenty of songs that are still down in the sub-70k range, and my events have been averaging more like 6 or 7 songs lately, but that's what RS Recommends gave me.

I'm not sure why RS chose these two songs, either. I had Surf Hell up over 90k already and even Unnatural Selection was up to just over 70k before this event. Kind of funny - Surf Hell has always been one of my favorite RS songs and Unnatural Selection has always been one of my least favorite RS songs.

And, while this turned out to be a HUGE event for me in other ways, it took place at the smallest possible venue - The Mouse Hole. So, only a few dozen people witnessed this crowning achievement.

I wouldn't say I exactly kicked ass on the setlist. I had Surf Hell down pat before I had to restart my journey, but I only beat the MQS by 4k. MQS for Unnatural Selection was 75k and I got 88k. That's what pushed me to 111% and got me the first encore.

The icing on the cake is this: my first encore was a Master Mode encore. Fortunately, of the nine songs I have mastered, Angela was the one I got. Sheer luck. By subtracting all the other scores from my final event score I determined that I scored 185,665 on the Master Mode encore - more than I needed for the whole event. Apparently good enough for a second encore.

Ironically, my second encore was Good Enough. The song Good Enough, by Tom Petty. Of course, once the second encore comes up, it doesn't really matter what you do. You could just unplug and go get a beer and you'd still get the Secret Squirrel Song. I had played this song only once before as an encore in Event 19, but I scored a respectable 76,198. Good enough. . . to unlock the Sugarcane tone.

Until this event, I hadn't unlocked anything except guitars since Event 30.